Abstract
| - Abstract. Human cerebral artery strips relaxed in response to non-adrenergic, non-cholinergic vasodilator nerve stimulation by electrical pulses or nicotine. The relaxation response was abolished by treatment with NG-nitro-L-arginine, a nitric oxide synthase inhibitor; the inhibitory effect was reversed by L-, but not D-, arginine. Nitric oxide-induced relaxation was unaffected. These findings support the hypothesis that nitric oxide plays a crucial role, possibly as neurotransmitter, in transmitting information from vasodilator nerve to smooth muscle in human cerebral arteries.
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